Those Country Roads

Meandering down the country roads that will take me from my house to the high school to pick up a son from soccer, I cannot help but see the ghosts of lives abandoned in search of a better life beyond the reaches of what farming could ever hope to bring them. Farm after farm sits silent among fields no longer sown or plowed. Animals that must have once lived out their lives on these pastures can no longer be found. In many of these places, Mother Nature has taken over what man first took from her when he plowed the fields to begin with; vines and tree saplings begin their decent up silos leaning in disrepair. Farmhouses that once held families trying to live off of this land look skeletal as roofs have caved in and window panes have long been shattered. 

I wonder about the lives that these families led. What was it that finally broke them and led them to seek a life elsewhere, something that promised to be better than the lives they were currently leading? What was it like for them to sell their animals, to foreclose on the farm, to look behind them one last time as they drove in their car down the lane from their home to the country roads that would lead them to the city and beyond? 

The drive haunts me; yet I find a beauty in the places that once held farmers and their livelihoods that I cannot ignore. The places that once held human life  now contain the beginnings of new life - of new forests and fields. I drive slowly down these country roads to hear the birds chirping and to see the animals stand and inspect me as I slowly drive past. Being in this country makes me feel like I am intruding on the lands of the animals. 

There is a peace I feel in the country. A feeling of simplicity, not to be confused with easiness. I do not try and fool myself into believing that a country life is an easy life. If I need any convincing of this fact I need look no further than the abandoned farms that dot the roadside. Maybe I am pulling the wool over my own eyes, but I always get the feeling when I drive through this part of town that there is a honesty that is required of country living; a bare bones kinda life where no b.s. or pretense survives. Perhaps that is just me projecting what I hope to see in the shadows of all that shows itself to me as I make my way down the road moving from one farmer's imploded dream to another. 

Long after I have moved away from Indiana I will carry the photographs that my mind has taken of these country roads and the farms left behind. Just like the farmers and their families, all that will remain are the echoes of my presence left in the wind to be devoured and consumed by Mother Nature; to be forgotten until someone else comes through looking for the ghosts of all that gets left behind.